Joseph Bruchac

Using their native language, the Navajo Marines played an invaluable part in World War II as they sent messages, did maneuvers, and completed tasks with words that couldn't be deciphered by the enemy. Reprint.

A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two

Code Talker

Nick Gracilla

1969 — 25 years after World War II — declassified war time information revealed that more than 200 Navajo Indians, recruited by the Marine Corps, played a critical role in communications in the Pacific front. Code Talkers translated vital intelligence and instructions into a memorized code, then spoke it over the radio in Navajo — a famously complex language that war-time Japan could not study or learn. Code Talkers were at, or in advance of, the most dangerous front lines, and their radio transmission locations were quickly triangulated and bombed — speak, pack, then run was critical to the survival of the Talkers and the entire wartime communication network. 

The ironies abound: many Code Talkers' grandparents were part of a forced 400 mile relocation at the end of the 1800s; many Code Talkers themselves learned English at brutal schools where speaking Navajo was forcibly forbidden — "Kill the Indian, save the man," was the dominant thinking at the time. Worst of all, despite invaluable and loyal service, Code Talkers were forbidden to talk about their work, and were excluded from many of the benefits of the G.I. Bill that lifted so many into middle class. 

This novel places the reader both into the foxholes of war in the 1940s, and also into a generations-spanning perspective of America's unjust treatment of its first people, its first Americans. I had heard of Code Talkers and thought of it as an oddity of war. But far from some quirk, understanding this history reveals not only their fundamentally critical war-time role, but also the shame and debt our country owes, yet continues to deny, to its people.

Ashley Wendt

2.5
Code Talkers felt more like a non-fiction read. It was interesting…I didn’t love the war scenes…I had a hard time staying engaged during those scenes. I did really enjoy hearing about Ned’s life leading up to him being a code talker.

Code Talker A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two

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